This column was originally published by Sheila Kennedy on her blog, “A Jaundiced Look at the World We Live In.”
By Sheila Kennedy
August 11, 2025
I’m not sure Micah Beckwith knows what “due process” means. In fact, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.
Indiana media has reported on our “Christian” Nationalist Lieutenant Governor’s most recent display of constitutional ignorance–his insistence that people in the U.S. illegally are not entitled to due process–and his ludicrous comparison of those immigrants to the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor. (Hey–no one ever accused Beckwith of logic…)
The Constitution clearly grants the right to due process to “all persons” on American soil, so Beckwith’s assertion is flat-out wrong. But his statement hints at an even more egregious ignorance: I’m pretty sure that he couldn’t define “due process” if his life depended on it.
Let me clarify it for Beckwith and his equally ignorant ilk.
Let’s say authorities take a person into custody, in the belief that the person is undocumented. Before that person can be confined or expelled or otherwise sanctioned–due process simply requires the government to demonstrate that the person is, indeed, undocumented, that they’ve got the right guy. The government needs to prove that the arrest was proper–not a mistake. If there is no requirement to demonstrate the lawfulness of an arrest or the accuracy of an identification–if it is simply adequate to accuse any detained person of being “illegal”–or guilty of any other crime–without offering probative evidence that the label is correct, then anyone can be swept up by a fascist government and deported or imprisoned…or “disappeared.”
Even Micah Beckwith.
Sheila Suess Kennedy is Emerita Professor of Law and Public Policy at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. As an attorney, she practiced real estate, administrative and business law in Indianapolis before becoming corporation counsel for the City of Indianapolis in 1977. In 1980, she was the Republican candidate for Indiana’s then 1th Congressional District and in 1992, she became executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. She joined the faculty of the School of Public and Environment al Affairs in 1998.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
